Page 35 of The Witch's Orchard
“No. I was actually going to ask where he got it.”
“Hemadeit,” she says.
“That’s his?” I ask, staring at the print with fresh eyes. The depth of the line, the gradation in value, the balance of the composition. The way the crows seemaliveas they melt into the sky. He’d said that he did woodblock prints, but this was way beyond the capability of a teenager.
“Max is such a talented kid,” Shiloh says, reading the look on my face. “He’s completely self-taught. He was offered scholarships to five different schools and even an internship in Japan to study with one of his heroes, which, I confess, I applied to for him because I knew he wouldn’t.”
“Wow.”
“But he won’t go,” she says. “Not until he’s done what he needs to do. And he needed to hire a PI.”
“Even if the PI doesn’t turn up anything new?”
“Do you think that’s what’ll happen?”
“It’s likely, I think. But I understand why he has to try.”
We watch Max and Molly in the distance. He picks something up from the ground and waves his hand like he’s performing a simple magic trick. She laughs and jumps up and down.
I look back at Shiloh and ask, “What can you tell me about First Baptist and Brother Bob?”
“You think they’re connected to the kidnappings?”
“Do you?”
“When I was a teenager, I remember there being questions. Later, when I saw Max’s notes and everything… Oh, I don’t know. I did wonder. All the girls taken had some kind of connection there. But as far as personal knowledge about the place? My family went to that church and so I went to that church but, aside from a couple family funerals, I haven’t been in years. Brother Bob must be in his, what, late sixties, at least? And what would he or anyone else from the church have done with a couple of little girls?”
“What’s Brother Bob like?” I ask. “He wasn’t there today.”
Shiloh’s lips purse to the side for a moment before she says, “He’s sort of like… Santa Claus in a glen plaid suit and loafers. He always struck me as harmless.”
“He never talked to you?”
“In passing, sure. But, he ministered from the pulpit. We had a couple youth ministers over the years, for the teenage crowd, but none of them really stand out.”
“And you don’t go now?”
Shiloh barks out a laugh.
“No. They’re pretty traditional, and I’m a single mom. I didn’t marry Lucy’s dad because, well, I just plain didn’t want to. He’s a nice guy but we barely knew each other. My folksloveLucy, and they take her to some of the church’s more benign functions. Festivals and picnics and Easter egg hunts. Stuff like that. Somehow my mom conned me into making a bunch of stuff for this year’s festival. Though I still don’t intend to go.”
“What can you tell me about Deena Drake?”
“She used to teach piano,” Shiloh says. “But my sisters and I didn’t take lessons. My daddy was much more interested in making sure we were all crack shots.” She pauses while we watch Max and Lucy stand at the edge of the gorge, looking down at the creek. “I was shooting clay pigeons out on the farm by the time I was eight.”
She shakes her head at the memory and then sighs and says, “But, aside from Deena being Max’s piano teacher, I know she came to town about twenty years ago and married Harvey Drake, the factory owner. Then he died and she stayed up in the house on the hill.”
“It’s a beautiful house. I was up there today.”
“Oh really?” Shiloh says. “I’ve heard the view is gorgeous. She has Christmas parties up there whenever the weather permits, and my parents usually go, but I’ve never seen it in person.”
We watch as Max and Lucy start back toward the house, Lucy still clutching Max’s fingers.
“You mentioned the church’s ‘more benign functions.’ Are there some that are less benign?”
She half shrugs. “Well, just revivals and that sort of thing. They have guest preachers in sometimes who are more or less fanatical about God’s word and the literalness of it. They occasionally have big prayer meetings where they get together to pray over someone who’s sick or suffering, sort of low-key faith healing. It’s fine for my parents but just not really for me.”
She turns toward Lucy and Max as they step onto the porch. “We’d better get home if we want to carve that pumpkin before bedtime.”
